January 2012. A crumbing mansion searches for salvation.

“My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.” ~ Pat Conroy

Andre de La Barre and I sat in his car at the fork in the road and tried to decide what to do.

“She didn’t say anything about a fork,” said Andre. We looked at each other and laughed.

“Can you call?”

Andre looked at his cell phone. No signal.

“Aw, heck,” I said. “Go right.”

We were in Lorman, Mississippi, thirty miles north of Natchez on a gravel road looking for a house a friend had told us was for sale: 1854 Greek-revival, raised cottage-style mansion on 3.3 acres for around $20,000. Needs a lot of work.

I had posted it on my Facebook page and was surprised at how quickly Andre sent me a message.

“We’ve got to go see this place! Can you go this weekend?”

Then he sent me a link to a book on Amazon.com called Mississippi in Africa by Mississippi author Alan Huffman. Huffman’s book tells a tale spanning two continents and two centuries and has all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy—wealth, greed, war, family, murder, redemption, sorrow and hope—the story of Prospect Hill Plantation.

And what a story it is.

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